"Well, what of that?" "You might have been an officer if you had liked, I suppose?" Penrose nodded. "It wur just grand of you." "Nothing grand at all," said Penrose. "A chap who doesn't do his bit at a time like this is just a skunk, that's all; and I made up my mind that I would learn what a private soldier's life was like before I took a commission." "Well, you know now," said Tom, "and you will be an officer soon, I expect." "My uniform's ordered," said Penrose. Tom was silent for some time. "I suppose you won't be friends with me any more, and I shall have to salute you," he remarked presently. "Discipline is discipline," replied Penrose. "As to friendship, I am not given to change." The battalion, eleven hundred strong, climbed a steep hill, under great overshadowing trees. Birds were singing gaily; May blossom was blooming everywhere; the green of the trees was wonderful to behold. Presently they came to a great clearing in a pine forest. The life of the country seemed suddenly to end, and they arrived at a newly improvised town. There were simply miles of wooden huts, while the sound of men's voices, the neighing of horses, and the rolling of wheels were heard on every hand. These huts, from what Tom could see, were nearly all of them about two hundred feet long, while around them were great open spaces where all vegetation had been worn away by the tramp of thousands of feet. The men, who had been singing all the way during their march, became silent; the scene was so utterly different from what they had left. That morning they had left a grim, grey, smoky manufacturing town; in the evening they had entered a clearing surrounded by sylvan beauty. "I feel as though I could stay here for ever," said Tom. "But look at yon'," and he pointed to a long, low hut, at the door of which the letters "Y.M.C.A." were painted. "Why, they're here too!" "Yes," said Penrose, "there's not a camp in the country where you don't find the Y.M.C.A. huts; for that matter they are on the Continent too." "But yon' place must have cost a lot of money," said Tom, "you can't build shanties like that without a lot of brass. Where did they get the brass from?" "I expect the people who believe in religious lolly-pops gave it to them," replied Penrose.